Well of Souls Forums

You know, if it helps, you obvious have enough material for a novel or a few novellas (short stories gave us some of the best in Sci Fi). You could always try that, then flesh out the visuals latter.

This might be adding more to your scheduled but it couldn't hurt.

that's actually true saint I would love to read this as a novel.

CptWinters wrote:Man, I've been around since page fifty. My mother printed out and mailed me page 75 in June 2010 when I was off doing Army stuff and didn't have access to a computer. I was with Outsider when we were on the old forums hosted over at digital webbing and when we all migrated in 2011. Count Casimir came over with me, and fredgiblet too (and others): all of us have been with this comic a long time and we're still here.

I hope it doesn't sound too egotistical to say that I think that's as good and solid a testament to the quality of Outsider as can be made. Maybe that's presumptuous of me, I don't know.

But, in the end, I guess all this is just to say that you young folks better pipe down. Don't get discouraged. Stick around — and be patient. You'll be glad you did, I promise you.

I guess that's all I have to say.

It's interesting to consider that there maybe people reading the comic (& forums) today that weren't even born when it started back in 2001.
(I personally arrived mid 2006 [~p41 I think] and still tend to think of myself as a fairly recent reader)

And it is hardly the only comic to take year plus hiatuses and come back as strong as ever.

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Speaking of the old forums, did anyone scrape them (for more than Arioch's answers)?
I kept meaning to do it, but the time I got round to it they had already been deleted.
Which is a shame as we had some really good threads on there.

So I guess you're the real old-timer around here, aren't you?

But that's my point: Outsider is good, and the fact that it doesn't have a regular update schedule is just the way it is and the way it has been since it started. And, as Arioch has mentioned before, when Outsider started, having a regular schedule was not at all typical of webcomics.

As for the old forums, I don't think anyone did an infodump before they got deactivated. Which is a shame, as you say. There was a lot of good information, and a lot of good discussion on there.

Even before the transition, some of the data had been lost, as DigitalWebbing would periodically truncate older threads. Someone had archived some of the remaining RP threads, but I don't recall who that was and whether he or she is still around.

Wasn't it fredg or bunny?

Fredge archived the quotes from me, but I think the RP stuff was someone else.

Darn, should get my act together and track down SchwartzDrache and poll the oldtimers about those archival fragments...

cacambo43 wrote:But I have seen Kickstarter campaigns for e-books, music and movies. There are also other sites like indiegogo which explicitly state its for raising money for "anything". Depending on the community, sometimes monies are raised beyond expectations. I would have to say, though, that I think the best time for any sort of crowdfunding has likely passed due to the long wait between pages. I know we have a core of die-hards that hangs around, and we have faith in Arioch to get back to updates, but I fear many more have abandoned the project (at least for now), but one never knows.

The problem being that you need enough people to be interested. As you state it's likely that, at the moment, the fanbase isn't strong enough to facilitate something like that. If Arioch queued up a good hundred pages, pushed them out at a consistent pace, put a bunch of effort into advertising and THEN put up a Kickstarter, then it's possible that it could be successful. The problem is getting to that point.

I will note that Arioch has been proven wrong though. Penny Arcade ran a Kickstarter to go ad-free, and it was 211% successful, the flip side is that they are Penny Arcade, I doubt Outsider pulls 1% of their numbers even at peak times.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pen ... t?ref=live

Hello Arioch,

Long time lurker, first time poster here. Let me start by saying I really enjoy your comic. Your art is great, the space opera story complete with and pretty blue elves is a guilty pleasure of mine that I consistently share with other people. Outsider is a Thing™ with my circle of friends.

I know it's frustrating when you can't devote any time to something that you enjoy doing.

I also understand that there are times when a perceived weight of expectation, coupled with badgering, can make even something that you really enjoy doing a chore. Something that for whatever reason, a person feels they'd rather just not face that day. So please, I hope you can disregard the commentary in this thread and others like it that I'm sure appear from time to time. I understand that we as readers have no contract with you, no right to feel entitled to a claim on your time, and that we are your guests here. People enjoy what you do, get a little carried away, and can forget their manners on occasion.

Thank you for sharing the story with us so far. I really do hope you will continue to tell the story in future, but only as long as you enjoy telling it to us. When you do get the time and inclination to work on Outsider - whether that's next week, or next month, or next year - I look forward to reading it.